Is it hard to get rich? Not really, if youre young.
Its fun to play with financial calculators and see what might happen.
Assume you have just graduated from college, are about 22 years old and I just started your first real job. If you put $100 a month in an IRA that grows at 10% a year, you will have about $865,000 at age 65. 10% a year compound growth is about what you should exect if the money was invested in a no-load S&P 500 Index Fund.
So for about $23 a week or $3.30 a day you would be close to being a millionaire.
If you contributed the full $4000 a year allowed right now to an IRA (rising to $5000 in 2008), you would have $2,600,000. For about $11.00 a day, you would have a small fortune.
If you didnt want to take a chance with the stock market because it goes down sometimes, you would still have over $600,000 if you could get a 5% return.
If your grandmother leaves you $10,000 in her will and you invest it for the same 43 years at 10% without adding another cent, youd also have over $600,000 if you placed it in a tax sheltered account.
Time and the power of compound interest are on your side. So if youre in you...